What should I Do to Clean my Heart?
If you think you do not need to clean your heart, you have a problem.
And if you think that you have arrived
at a level where your heart is pure and clean, you have an even bigger problem.
Because Shaitaan makes us believe that we are better than others.
Shaitaan makes us believe that we do not require attention.
Yet a true believer knows
that from the beginning to the end, he will always require attention.
Tomorrow is supposed to be better than today.
Today is supposed to be better than yesterday.
But it is only a person whose heart is diseased who begins to think, I'm okay.
I don't need attention.
So let's ask ourselves every day,
what can I do to improve the condition of my heart.
We have just come out of the best month
of the Islamic calendar, which is the month of Ramadan.
You and I know that the most important organ that we have is the heart.
The heart is closely connected to the mind.
So if you have a clean heart, it actually affects the mind
and the mind begins to do things that are correct
and pleasing to Allah Almighty.
Because the heart is clean.
This is taken from the Hadith of the Prophet (pbuh),
when he says, Behold, in the body there is a piece of flesh.
If it is good and pure, clean, the whole body will be good, pure and clean.
And if it is dirty, filthy,
then the whole body will be dirty, filthy, corrupt, sinful, etcetera.
Behold, that organ is the heart.
Behold, it is the heart.
Now, to cleanse the heart is the duty of every Muslim.
How do I clean my heart?
It is supposed to be a question you ask yourself on a daily basis.
How do I clean my heart?
What should I do to clean my heart?
If you think you do not need to clean your heart, you have a problem.
And if you think that you have arrived at a level
where your heart is pure and clean, you have an even bigger problem.
Because Shaitaan makes us believe that we are better than others.
Satan makes us believe that we do not require attention.
Yet a true believer knows that
from the beginning to the end, he will always require attention.
He will always require improvement.
The one whose two days are the same without improvement is the one at loss.
So imagine if the second day is worse than the first.
What type of a loss would you expect?
If both your days are the same today and tomorrow,
the same in terms of goodness, then you are at a loss.
Tomorrow is supposed to be better than today,
and today is supposed to be better than yesterday.
But it is only a person whose heart is diseased
who begins to think, I'm okay, I don't need attention.
So let's ask ourselves every day,
what can I do to improve the condition of my heart?
Number one,
Definitely;
The believers are those whose hearts are cleansed by the remembrance of Allah.
It's only the believers whose hearts are cleansed by the remembrance of Allah.
For indeed, it is the remembrance of Allah that causes the cleansing of the heart.
How do you remember Allah? My brothers, my sisters;
Number one,
learn to develop a relationship with the words of Allah and the Quran.
Not just in Ramadan,
we are out of Ramadan, but right now in the month of Shawwal and beyond.
What is your connection with the word of Allah?
Do you make an effort with it?
If not, your heart cannot be pure.
It's impossible that's the word of the owner of the hearts.
And He's the one who turns the hearts.
If you don't have a connection with His words, His reminders, His warnings,
then how can you expect your heart to be clean?
So if you don't read the Quran and you don't want to know its meaning
and it irritates you when people tell you what the Quran says,
then you have a diseased heart that requires attention.
Imagine if I were to tell you that you have a physical disease and sickness.
Let's go to the doctor and the doctor says go right now and get it sorted out.
You would rush, you would spend whatever resources you have
in order to ensure that your heart doesn't stop beating.
But spiritually, your heart could have stopped beating a long time back.
And Allah is telling you that
you will only achieve the calmness, the contentment of the heart
and the cure of the diseases of the heart through the Quran,
Allah speaks about the Quran and He addresses all the people and He says,
What I've said to you is not just something to read,
but it has in it cure for what lies in the chests,
meaning your heart, the diseases of your heart.
The Quran has cure in it.
The Quran has a reminder in it for all of us.
If you don't want to take Allah's reminder, whose reminder do you want?
So develop a relationship with the Quran beyond Ramadan, then you are successful.
Develop a relationship with the repetition of the praise of Allah with understanding.
So don't just say Subhanallah,
Alhamdulillah, LA ILAHA ILLALLAH, Akbar without thinking of what you're saying.
Repeat those words every day.
They are the most powerful words of Dhikr that you have.
They are so heavy on the scale,
so light on the tongue, they will help you, they will improve you.
But think about what you're saying.
You're praising your Lord Who made you.
He is the greatest, He is the highest,
He is the biggest, He is the Supreme, Glory be unto Him, etc.
Repeating those beautiful words
as per the teaching of Muhammad (pbuh) will definitely help cleanse your heart.
Then learn to love those who are poor.
'Hubbal- Massakeen' is something the Prophet (pbuh) used to ask Allah,
O Allah, grant me the love of those who are poor,
those who are downtrodden, the broken hearted.
Learn to love them. Look out for them, greet them,
talk to them, give them a word of goodness,
reach out to them, give them something, help them in their problems
and difficulties and you will find your heart will purify itself.
Learn to divorce yourself from material items beyond a certain point.
Everyone loves good things, everyone loves wealth.
In fact, it has been beautified for mankind;
Part of the test of Allah is that this has been beautified in order to test us.
Who will go and get it against what Allah has ordained
and who will only get what is permissible and Halal,
you have the opposite gender, beautified for mankind.
You have wealth, beauty for mankind.
You have so much more that is beautified;
Your conveyance, your motor cars,
your motor vehicles, your horses, your camels, whatever else it may be,
beautified for mankind as a test, Allah wants to test you.
Are you going to go and get it Haram or you're going to get it halal?
That's all.
So when you learn to divorce yourself from that which is Haram
and try your best and struggle towards achieving that which is only halal,
not only do you achieve a reward for it, it cleanses your heart.
Learn to love for others what you love for yourself, it will cleanse your heart.
The problem:
We are selfish, we want goodness for ourselves.
We will never want to help someone else with something we have,
if the heart is diseased.
The only time you love for others on every level What you love for yourselves
is when your heart is free from disease.
We must ensure that we look at those
who are in need and ask ourselves how can I help?
Don't worry about other what others are doing.
People say oh you weren't supporting this cause
and you were against that cause and this cause when they themselves have damaged
that cause more than anyone else because they can't see their own faults.
They can only see the faults of others.
And sometimes it is so bad, the jealousy and the envy in the heart
and the heart is so diseased that let alone seeing the faults of others,
even what is right in them looks like a fault because your heart is diseased.
What is right?
Someone is doing something Noble and beautiful and amazing,
something that would earn them Jannah and to you it was a fault.
It was wrong because your heart is diseased.
How do you clean it?
Well, you need to remove the jealousy in it
by thinking about those who are jealous of
and praying for them and making a Du'a for them and asking Allah to grant them
and reminding yourself you are no better than others.
The minute you think you are above others, you are better than others.
Allah loves you more than everybody else.
There is a problem because Allah loves everyone, Subhanallah.
How do you know you're going to die in a condition that Allah loves you?
That's my struggle.
When I end my match, that is when the result will be announced,
Not at the beginning,
Right now I could be praying five times a day.
I could be doing Quran.
I could be fasting the 6 fasts of Shaawal.
I could be fasting Mondays and Thursdays.
I could be reading Quran every day.
Who knows how my life is going to end?
That's why Allah Almighty,
we are taught through the messenger (pbuh) that He sent to us,
Muhammad Ibn Abdullahi Hashimi Al Qurashi (pubh)
to continue to ask Allah for 'Thabaat', 'Thabaat'
meaning steadfastness upon the path, to ask for death upon faith and Islam.
You don't know how you're going to die.
May Allah Almighty grant us goodness.
But we are taught if you lead your life in a beautiful way,
In Sha Allah, the likelihood of you dying in a beautiful way is also great.
Learn to love for others what you love for yourself.
You know in Islam when we've made a lot of wealth
and I'm going to talk about money when you've made a lot of money,
it's a test from Allah knowing you will never ever spend that money in your life.
What are you going to do with it?
There are some who want to get more and more and more for themselves,
That when another earns a little bit, they get upset, they get angry,
they get so crossed they want to see the others downfall.
But my brother, you are making the millions.
Why don't you allow them to make the thousands?
What are you losing? Subhanallah?
What is going from you?
The winners are those who can reach out to others even at the time of need.
And that's what the Shahaba Radi Allahu Ta'ala Anhum did.
They needed it but they gave the other one and guess what?
As a result, Allah threw it at their feet.
So they got even more and more and more.
But we've got the equation wrong.
We are looking at it from the eye of materialism.
So we lose. Cleanse your heart.
Without the cleansing of the heart, we wasted Ramadan.
My brothers, my sisters, we must learn to understand.
Everyone is struggling.
Everyone is going through difficulty and hardship.
Be happy at what Allah has chosen for you.
It is a challenge and a test for you. And you know what?
Take it in your stride. Get up.
Seek the help of Allah and
try and do something about it according to the capacity given to you by Allah.
Seek the help of Allah and don't be lazy.
Don't give up.
Don't think to yourself after something has occurred
that if I did this, that would have happened.
And if they did this and if that happened and if and if and if.
Because if opens the door of Shaitaan and the deeds of Satan.
You should remember my brothers and sisters,
something happened to you fair and good.
Ask yourself, have I hurt someone?
Have I harmed someone?
Have I wronged someone?
Have I oppressed another?
If the answer is yes, go and make peace.
Go and seek forgiveness.
When something wrong happens to you in your life,
it's a time to reflect over the evil you might have.
Yes it is. But once you do that, thank Allah.
The bad that came in your direction helped you to become a better person,
It was actually something good for you.
It helped you in your life.
Secondly, ask yourself, how is my relation with Allah?
We ask Allah. Goodness, goodness, goodness.
We wanted right now.
Imagine if Allah were to punish us in a similar way,
When you do bad, you don't want the punishment in 5 seconds.
But when you want good, you want it in 5 seconds.
Oh, Allah, grant me a good business deal,
Asr time comes and you say Allah didn't answer my Dua.
Hang on, man. It's only Asr.
You made the Dua at Fajr.
But how many sins you committed between Fajr and Asr?
If the punishment of that had to come, your whole shop would burn down.
May Allah grant us goodness.
That doesn't mean if your shop has burned down, it's the punishment of Allah.
If that shop burning down brought you closer to Allah, it was His gift.
It's impossible for any human who existed on Earth
not to taste things that he or she would consider negative.
But through Eman and faith, you look at it in a positive light.
You thank Allah. You take it in your stride.
Life is a struggle. Go and look;
Anyone who has anything and everything?
Nobody can say that there's no struggle at all.
Struggles are on a different level.
Sometimes you might think you have everything.
My brother, my sister;
Are you sure that's not only material items you're talking about?
When you don't have Salat Al Fajr, you have zero Allah.
May Allah make us steadfast.
When you cannot dress appropriately for the sake of Allah,
There's a lot that still needs to be worked on, right?
When you cannot quit a bad habit and you want to justify it simply
because you enjoy lounging around and socializing with whatever it may be a SHISHA or
a Bisha and whoever tells you anything, you are quick to look for
Whatever justification you have for your bad habits,
And you want to say no. That's a little bit hard and harsh.
My brother, We didn't come on Earth only and solely to socialize.
Socializing is only a small fraction of trying,
perhaps to earn closeness to Allah through saying a good word or two
When you interact with people, it is never, ever for a believer to think
that socializing was in order to forget Allah for a moment, Not even.
What is socializing?
We will and we shall, but within what Allah is pleased.
So there goes, my brothers and sisters, without taking too much time,
The reminder today was to cleanse the heart.
Learn to love people.
Learn to solve problems.
Learn to have a big heart.
Learn to give from what you have.
Then you will clean your heart.
Get closer to Allah,
get closer to Allah the way to do that through your prayer,
through respecting people, speaking to them with utmost respect.
The lowest according to the world should be a person,
you respect with your tongue and with your attitude.
Then you are cleaning your heart.
Try and think good of others.
Something called 'Husnul-dhan'
Someone doing something, another person doing something else.
The worst thoughts come to our hearts.
Do you know why? The heart is diseased in the first place?
That's the reason. Tt's a sign you need help more than them.
That doesn't mean stop reminding people of goodness.
But clean your heart.
Think good of others.
Don't think bad of them.
Wouldn't you like someone to think good of you?
Reach out to them in a positive way.
Today we insult people in public.
We do so much.
Do you know what it all boils down to?
Behold, in this body there is a piece of flesh.
If it is good and pure and clean,
the whole body will be good and pure and clean on every level.
And if it is dirty, diseased, sick and ill, then the whole body will be just so.
May Allah Almighty cure us all and grant us goodness.
My brothers and sisters, once again we've come out of the month;
The best month. The month of fasting.
We've come out In sha Allah with forgiveness from Allah.
Do not spoil it.
Do not miss it.
Continue with your Salah, continue with your Quran, continue with your dhikr,
Continue with your charities on a daily basis.
Even if it is a dollar,
Allah open your doors.
One day you will give a charity at a time when the acceptance is happening.
And you will be accepted. May Allah accept us all.